The Will
by Ranger75
Summary: Seven of the wasteland's most illustrious characters are called to the reading of the will of a legendary man. Who can survive the deadly trials long enough to receive their inheritance?
1. Mos Per a Mos

The wasteland, the Capital Wasteland. I've lived here my whole life, had my share of adventures, played my part in more stories than I can count. However, one event has overridden all of these, proved itself more worthy to be shared than all the killing and running a life in the wastes can produce. I am Jonathan Michaels, the last surviving heir and holder of the will, a position which cost me more than anything else I could have imagined, and has yet guided my every action, my every thought since the moment I reentered the sunlight. My tale, though it is by no means mine alone, begins many years ago, in the town of Megaton.

Megaton was booming with sound, booze, and girls. The place had become the go-to place for anyone with extra caps to burn, with Gob's Saloon and The Brass Lantern revered as household names across the wastelands. I was young, twenty-two years old, and was taking in the sights and sounds like they were going out of style. Things were actually looking up, not just for me, but for the entire wasteland- probably the first time anyone could say that since the bombs dropped. Solar panels, at the behest of the aging Claudia Brown, the daughter of the author of the Wasteland Survival Guide, were installed in every major city, sucking up sunlight and spitting out enough energy to keep the lights on, the water hot, and furnaces flowing. The Enclave were an unknown, not seen in D.C. since the destruction of Raven Rock. For every lone raider, marauder, and thief, there were three Brotherhood Knights, Regulators, and armed do-gooders. Except for the rusting pit of Paradise Falls, the wasteland bore little resemblance to the lawless warzone my grandfather had described to me. Children could play, caravans were regular and dependable, and almost anyone could find a niche in the ever-growing workforce to churn out more than enough caps for themselves. In short, humanity was pulling itself back together. And like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, Megaton burned brightly as a symbol of what we had accomplished. It was truly hard for me to believe that this town ever had fewer than two-hundred residents, standing in stark contrast to the rolling city that now engulfed Springvale as well, spreading far beyond the original blast crater. The old bomb was still there, stuck in a museum by some enterprising spirit. I had once paid the five-cap fee to see and touch the old bomb shell, and it was hard to fathom that such a thing one sat, fully armed, in the center of the town square. Yes, Megaton stood at the forefront of every advance, it always had the latest technology, the best food, the newest ideas. Megaton had alone become worth more than the entire wasteland of my grandparents' generation. For me, it was overwhelming.

The reason for my visit was business, a client of mine wanted to meet me at his house for some interviews. You see, I had implemented myself into the wasteland economy as an expert in people. Farmer people, soldier people, all kinds of people. It was my job to be able to judge the good from the bad, the good hires from the problem employees. Before a caravan took on a new guard, they would turn to me to interview and process the employee, before handing over my final judgment on their qualifications. It also worked the other way: many headstrong laborers knew that they stood a much better chance at gaining employment with my seal of approval on their records. As such, I quickly enriched myself far beyond my hometown of Big Town, moving briefly to Arefu and then settling into a suite at Tenpenny Tower. However, even Tenpenny could not hold a candle to Megaton. I was sorry to awake on my last day in Megaton, when I would have to conclude my business and return home. However, I still had one interview left to conduct- or so I thought. The night before, at Gob's Saloon, I had managed to get myself immeasurably drunk, and ended up partying away the night with an expensive and gorgeous group of women. Just as the last drinks were disappearing and the lights were being extinguished, one of my fellow late partiers approached me. A cute waitress, I think I recognized as the daughter of Lucy West, slipped me an envelope with my last order of vodka. I tipped her a extra few caps and asked who had given it to me, when she replied that it had been addressed to me and placed on the counter when she had begun her shift. I thanked her anyway, bid goodnight to my ladies, and stumbled to my hotel room overlooking Craterside Industries. Before I fell to sleep, I checked the single piece of paper in the envelope.

_Mr. Michaels_, it read, _Please meet me at the Craterside Lounge tomorrow night at 10:00 pm sharp, I have an urgent business matter to discuss with you. Come alone. You will find that I have paid your room and board for the extra nights. -B_

I smiled at the last sentence, a perfect excuse to stay in Megaton for another day, and no business talk until 10:00 pm. Perfect, I thought to myself as I drifted off into a drunken sleep.

The next night, I approached the Craterside Lounge at the appointed time. I gave the waiter my name, but he said that I already had a table reserved for me on the observatory floor. I walked into the pre-war elevator and pulled the level that would raise me to the top floor, a full three stories above any other building in Megaton. It was now that I began to grow anxious about my meeting. Only VIPs could land a reservation on the observatory floor, so named for the repurposed pre-war telescope that provided the light for the customers, refracting the light of the stars and moon through a giant crystal. Craterside Lounge, Craterside Industries, and Craterside Arms had all developed out of the original Craterside supply shop and had become a shining star in the wasteland economy. Craterside Industries processed scrap metal from all parts of the wasteland into useable sheets, usually turning over many of them to Craterside Arms to be pressed and stamped into weapons and ammunition. I had worked with both of them before. Craterside Lounge was a much more localized operation, functioning as a nexus of both fine dining and business meetings. The restaurant itself was without compare, and would have been unthinkable thirty years ago. The waiters were dressed to the pre-war standard of excellence, the food- though assembled from the standard wasteland fair- was certainly the best you could find. When the elevator plinked to a stop and I was shown to my table by an attractive waitress, I noticed it was already occupied by an older gentleman coughing into a handkerchief. When he stopped coughing and rose to his feet, I noticed the kerchief was peppered with blood: this man was not well.

"Mr. Michaels?" he asked. "Right on time." He waited until I sat down across from him before he took his seat, lowering himself gingerly onto the chair. "Two glasses of brandy to start with," he said to the waitress, then lapsed into another coughing fit. I was about to speak, but the man cut me off. "Jonathan Michaels. I... am Mr. Burke."


	2. Ingenero Preteritus

"Well, Mr. Michaels," he began, "What I'm about to tell you begins long ago, well before your time. The wasteland was different then- _I _was different then, as well. I worked for a man named Allistair Tenpenny- you know of Tenpenny, don't you?"

"I live in his tower," I said, accepting the brandy from the waitress. "Quite a man."

"Yes, back in those days an enterprising spirit was rarer than a green tree. Most people were content to sit around in their rags and cry rather than to stand up and work. Now... now it's different. I'm proud to have lived long enough to see the Capitol come so far. But, I digress. As I said, I worked for Tenpenny. He rarely left his tower, you see, so I served as his eyes and ears across the wasteland." He sipped the brandy, it seemed to ease his coughing a little bit. "So, as it was, Mr. Tenpenny contracted several mercenaries- not the trained professionals you see around today, mind you, a bunch only slightly more civilized than a raider band. These mercenaries were to retrieve an item from the past- from before the war. This item- this machine- was housed under incredibly high security at the abandoned Fort Constantine. The fort itself burned to the ground quite a while ago- when the Enclave launched a full-scale invasion of the wasteland. You must ask someone more knowledgeable than I about that particular battle- quite a heroic story. Anyway, we had learned from some of the Brotherhood Outcasts the location and purpose of the machine. It was to be activated the day the bombs dropped, with the intention being... the intention being to prevent the Great War."

I coughed through my drink, surprised. "You said- one machine? Could have prevented the War? How is that possible? What is it?" I asked.

Burke shook his head, "The science is beyond me, but the names we found with the orders concerning the project... Braun was at the top of that list. The facility was well-protected: several of the mercenaries died in simply retrieving the artifact. We told them it was a weapon, and in a way that was the truth. It was, quite simply, amazing to behold. No larger than a pre-war computer, you could feel the sheer power radiating from it from yards away. I looked at it plenty, I saw something inside of it like the GECK they have now in the Jefferson Memorial, but on a much more powerful scale. I'll tell you what, I was alive when the Megaton bomb was still armed and dangerous, and I never felt threatened or scared. But this... thing, when I held it before me I was immediately captivated by fear, by awe. I doubt there ever was, or ever will be anything like it."

"That's... well that's amazing, but hold on: you said it could have ended, or rather prevented the Great War. Weren't weapons like this what created the wasteland? What destroyed _everything_?"

"No... this was no bomb. It was designed to- to change."

"Change what?"

"Everything, I believe." Burke finished smartly. "Ok," I said, starting to feel a little in over my head, "But how does any of this pertain to me?"

"Once the story finishes, my dear boy, you will see. But, again, I must digress. Time is one thing of which I cannot afford to lose, especially now. Anyway, Tenpenny had the item, but had no idea how to use it. When we tried to even bring up the display screen, it consumed more power than our generators could provide. After several attempts, Tenpenny had it locked up, and he started a full-scale search for any pre-war technology specialists, no doubt hoping to bribe a Brotherhood member or an Outcast. But, after only a week of searching, the Enclave set in motion the events which I described to you earlier, and the device was lost. That is, my dear boy-"

"Until now."

"Until now, it would appear." He slid me a small envelope, which I opened, revealing a grainy photograph of the device he had described. It was about the size of a computer, with what looked like a small generator sticking out of the back. Several coils, antennae, and wires stuck out of the machine, giving it an odd look. Also inside the envelope was a small ticket, with Mr. Burke's name and signature on it.

"The machine, it seems, was found by none other than the man who stopped the Enclave. Now, how this relates to you. This man, the one who found the machine, has finally died. Now, I and several other characters of the wasteland have been invited to a reading of his will. The letter that was sent to me promised riches and wealth, but I think I know better. This machine must be a part of his will, if not the entirety of it. Now, I have very little time left: I cannot make the trip to the place, to Rivet City. But you, on the other hand..."

"Wait- Rivet City?" Rivet City was a rusting, abandoned ruin. It was so thoroughly scavenged and picked over that few had any reason to visit it ever since the last occupants left for their new home inside of the fortified Anchorage War Memorial. "Me? You want _me _to go to a reading of a will- in Rivet City- for a man I never met or really heard of?"

"Yes. Yes I do."

"Well... why?"

He heaved a heavy sigh. We were now the only ones in the observatory, we had talked long into the night. "Because, Mr. Michaels, I believe that you have the capacity to be what I have always tried to be, what I never could be: a good man."

I took the ticket.


End file.
